Let’s start with an easy one… tell us a little about yourself Toby

I joined Planet IT in September 2023 having come from a range of working backgrounds. Most recently I was working for a Private Healthcare organisation managing their new clients and their marketing whilst also being solely responsible for their IT systems for a multi-unit franchise.

I’ve always had an interest in the world of IT both inside & outside of work. As soon as the opportunity to combine them in a role at Planet IT I jumped at the chance.

Can you explain your journey to Planet IT? 

I’d been in Planet IT’s ‘orbit’ for some time as a customer. The last 2 organisations I worked for had used Planet IT for everything from hardware purchases to firewalls & security. I’d always been attracted to the excellent service I was receiving as a customer and when a role came up that allowed me to bring my interest and experience in IT to may day to day I had to go for the role!

You’re relatively new to your current role, but you’re excelling! Why do you think it suits you so well?  

I think it’s the fact that having been the IT Manager for a multi-unit SME I have a great understanding of what the customer needs from me as their account manager. I love getting out to my client’s offices and meeting them and their teams in person, and finding out what their organisation is focused on so that I can align their IT technologies alongside their plans to grow and sustain robust IT systems. I always aim to deliver a relationship-led service which has all of my clients at the heart of everything I do.

What sort of clients do you like working with? 

I have such a wide variety of clients across many different industries. It sounds cliched, but I love working with all of them and understanding what IT systems they need to best support their work. It keeps the job fresh for me, and no day is the same.

What technologies are making the most impact to your client’s businesses?  

Technology moves incredibly fast these days but many of my clients are making the move to Azure and implementing applications such as Intune and Endpoint management applications. I’m also seeing a huge deal of interest in the implementation of Microsoft Copilot which has been an exciting product to get out there also.

What challenges do you face in your role? 

No day is the same but I wouldn’t see it as challenge per say but it keeps me on my toes keeps me learning everyday!

What is it like to work at Planet IT?   

In my short time working at Planet IT I have had the incredible opportunity to meet some amazing people and do some fantastic things with my clients and colleagues. Planet IT is like no other organisation that I have ever worked for, it doesn’t feel like work when I leave in the morning!

What has been your favourite Planet memory so far, and what are you looking forward to?  

It was great to part of the 20^th Anniversary celebrations and hear the journey that Planet IT has come on in those 20 years. Still being young on my time here, I look forward to experiencing more of what Planet IT has to offer!

What makes you tick outside work?  

Outside of work I spend a lot of time with my family, I have a wife and 1 year old son who keep me very busy. However, in the odd spare moment I do get I love cooking and if the weather is good you can often find me on the Golf Course.

If you were to give advice to a young person thinking of entering the world of IT – what would it be?

There’s so many areas of IT, try to explore as much as you can and find what you enjoy the most!

Let’s start with an easy one… what exactly is a Principal Technical Architect?

Well… I’ll do my best to describe that title as we all know it is comprehensive and contains many small bits and pieces.

In a few words, a Technical Architect helps businesses understand how the technology works that they might commit to buying and implementing within their company.

There are a few types of Technical Architect. One is a pre-sale Technical Architect, which is precisely what I do in my role. I often engage in conversations with businesses before the sales process. In the typical jargon, I use simple terminology to speak to executives about existing or new technologies. I often change technical language to something more straightforward for the client to understand so they can more comfortably decide to implement a solution within their organisation.

A big part of my role as Principal Technical Architect is to create IT roadmaps, where we look at the overall existing infrastructure for the business and project changes within a specific timeline to achieve better outcomes, essentially acting as your IT Director or CTO, providing that long-term technical vision for the business.

How does that fit within the Managed IT Support Area of Planet IT?

Within the MSP business, the Technical Architect role is a glue between a client and the infrastructure team. That’s looking after that business on a day-to-day basis. We all try to work together to achieve one goal, and that is, first of all, to make the client’s life easier by implementing technology which works for them first but at the same time makes the infrastructure team happy as they will have to then look after that solution and support the client after it has all been implemented.

A big part of my experience that massively helped me within my role was being a technical liaison. I was a part of the helpdesk and onsite team, assisting clients within the MSP business for over ten years. I saw the major struggles that companies were going through and often had to work under pressure to resolve those problems. I always say that I have been on the other side of the fence and not only seeing technical issues from one side of the monitor 😊.

What sort of clients do you like working with?

In our role here at Planet IT, we help over 90 support clients from various sectors, such as pharmaceutical, manufacturing, and consulting. We also manage highly demanding organisations like schools, hospitals, and critical care businesses, where technology has to be delivered on point as those clients are highly dependent on it. Working with companies with a straight mission and vision for their business is much easier as we can focus on longer-term goals rather than short patches. Those kinds of companies often stick to the plan and implement changes that Technical Architects put in the IT Strategies.

What technologies do you like working with?

This might sound like a broken tape, and as we hear more about the security solutions, most of us probably think…. oh, not again!

Unfortunately, the world we live in has pushed us to focus even more on the security aspect of every business.

We often work in a hybrid mode, which always makes technical departments very busy, and every aspect of security behind the hybrid working solution requires addressing accordingly.

I am not even sure where to start, as we can talk about it for hours, but mainly these days, we do not work from one secure parameter, such as the office. We do not use only one device to access business data. As everybody knows, and I am sure that most of you agree, we tend to use many devices, such as laptops, mobile phones, and tablets, to access our data.

From a technical perspective, it is our main goal here at Planet IT, and I am sure many other companies, too, secure that data and the devices from which it is accessible. In the technical department, we regularly speak about new technologies that can help secure the data and make sure that in the event of losing a single device, which, let’s face it, is not really hard these days, mitigating the risk of accessing it by someone who should not is achievable as quick as possible.

Using the right technologies, such as Microsoft Intune, is something that we work on daily here at Planet IT, and I can happily say that it makes me almost very proud that many businesses are deciding to make the right move and shift towards it.

What technologies are you looking forward to seeing in the future?

Virtual reality and all the AI-facing technologies that we can hear about are things that everybody is talking about at the moment. Many big companies are introducing solutions that can help us with our daily tasks, whether at work or at home, and some of them we might have seen in futuristic movies a long time ago. We all know for a fact that this is happening. We are testing some of these solutions here in Planet IT that might help businesses internally.

What challenges do you face in your role?

As I have mentioned, in participating in the Security Summit conversation regarding bridging gaps between technology professionals and executives, the challenge often is to try to convince the senior management team to invest in IT. I have been on many calls when I heard someone saying my system is not broken, so why must we make those changes?

Our job is to ensure that clients understand the importance and often the urgency of the changes that need to be made. Surprisingly, today, we still see many businesses that have not moved from their onsite server operating system, which is not supported anymore, and that is just one example. That may be because they are using bespoke and legacy applications, and the migration might not be that easy, but as long as there is someone who is willing to start a conversation with us and is open to a change, I call it a success as we can then have a discussion and try to face and resolve the current situation.

You were recently named the Planet IT MVP – Tell us about that. How did it feel?

That is a huge privilege, and I have to say that I am very grateful to be chosen by Planet IT team and voted for an MVP award, which I think stands for the most valuable player (I have been watching those basketball playoffs for a long time, and I know what that is 😉).

This all happened while I was climbing Kilimanjaro. I remember that my friend happened to catch the internet signal in the middle of nowhere for just 1 hour during our 7-day trip! I wanted to see what happened in the big world, and when I found out about winning…!! We then lost internet access, so I could not even say how happy I was. I feel like this is a team achievement, and although I was lucky enough to get awarded the MVP title, I cannot thank the entire Planet IT team who stands behind it enough!!!

What makes you tick outside work?

I love overall physical activity, whether walking, hiking, or training… I love it all!!! Why…? It is probably because during those, I don’t have to think about anything else, and I don’t need to analyse any solutions 😉.